In Between
by ArokenHalo
Summary: A missing scene for Trust Metric because I had to. Takes place after Colby's heart stops and before he's stable in the hospital. Just what happened, and what was everyone thinking in between.


I know that it's late, but I couldn't hep myself. _Trust Metric_ just spurred too many bunnies. This takes place between the last scene on the boat (with Colby's heart stopped) and the scene in the hospital with David and Megan watching him sleep. Colby was tortured, but it seems he has not suffered enough. He must yet survive me.

Since this is a missing scene, it has the obvious spoilers, so you have been warned. Oh, and one more warning, this has not been beta-ed.

sighs This show, it's characters and the general plot line are not mine (I could only be so lucky).

David pressed down, focusing all of his weight and momentum into the heel of his hand. He had been on edge all day, riding a tide of anger, hurt and frustration, then he had run into that room only to discover that Colby's heart had stopped. He had been pushing the panic from that realization away when suddenly, Colby stopped breathing as well. He pushed down, again and again, knowing that this was the only thing that kept blood flowing through his friend's body. He exhaled, feeling his throat tighten when his efforts produced nothing.

And Colby's lips were turning blue.

"Stay with me! Wake up! Stay with me!" He was barely aware of the words, shouted, pleaded in the small room. A mantra, an entreaty and an order all at once.

"Colby!" Don's voice echoed with his own, "Colby! Come on!" Don held the younger man's face with his hands, stared at the pale features, willing green eyes to open. Green eyes he hadn't seen in five weeks, except through a fuzzy black-and-white screen. And it seemed as if his heart was over-compensating, beating more and more wildly because Colby's wasn't at all. "Come on! Don't give up, Colby! Breathe!"

Megan was standing just behind him; one hand at her mouth, the other gripped her gun with white knuckles. She was quiet, her body still, but her eyes spoke volumes of intensity, screaming orders for the young agent to breathe, to wake up just as loudly as her colleagues.

But nothing happened, and already it felt like forever. Already felt like too late.

A flood of expletives poured from David's mouth, frustrated and desperate for a reaction as he pounded on his friend's chest. Something cracked under the pressure but he didn't stop. Beneath his hands, Colby's body was still unmoving. No air breathed, no blood flowed except what he forced. Squeezing his eyes shut, he pressed down again.

Don slapped Colby's cheek, hard enough to bruise, calling his name again and again. Megan dropped to her knees beside them, "Come on. Come on. Come on."

When it happened, it wasn't dramatic, the way they show in the movies sometimes. Colby didn't suddenly take a deep breath, gasping for air as his eyes fluttered open. There were no pain-filled but flippant words exchanged with his former team.

It wasn't dramatic, but everyone in that small room froze when it happened.

Before David could push down once more; Colby exhaled in a low, soft huff. For a moment more, nothing, then his body jerked, throat and chest convulsing weakly as he tried to draw in much needed oxygen, managing only a choked half-gasp. The tubucurarine was still in his system, effectively shutting down his respiratory system, paralyzing his lungs. Eternal seconds later, hands still cupping Colby's face, Don felt a slow, faint pulse.

Both Don and David rocked back on their heels, hands falling tiredly to their sides, and Megan sighed with relief.

The breaths Colby took were shallow, barely anything at all, but he was doing so under his own power, and that was enough to stave off some of their desperation. Just a few seconds after, the room exploded into action once more when a set of paramedics finally made it on the scene.

David was pushed away gently but firmly, Don felt a hand on his shoulder do the same and he stumbled a few feet back. Unconsciously, the three agents in the room gathered together as they watched the pair work.

Having realized that Colby's respirations were extremely low, one paramedic, his tag reading _Daniel__ Sherman_, set out to place an oxygen mask over his face. The other man, _Charles __Kissel_, reached out to take Colby's wrist, his left, to get his pulse. Seeing the deep bruises and red chaffing around the area, he gently set it down and reached and for his carotid.

As soon as the paramedic's fingers made contact with Colby's skin, the unconscious body jerked away. Further attempts were met with the same reaction, only it seemed to growing in intensity, until any touch that brushed against bare skin had the tortured agent flinching and moaning in pain. Both paramedics pulled away, then traded a look.

Kissel glanced around the room, gaze locking onto the small metal cart, or more precisely, to the familiar looking containers sitting on top. He got up and moved with urgency toward it, picking up each bottle and examining the labels closely. He bagged each one separately, knowing it might be imperative that the doctors know what they were dealing with. He was tensely quiet until he reached one he wasn't sure he recognized, "Quinuclidynil Benzilate."

But his partner jerked his head upward, "What? Here?"

"What? What is that?" David asked. He didn't receive an answer.

"Danny?" Kissel looked at his young partner.

"It's an anticholinergic." The dark-haired paramedic still kneeling beside Colby sighed, frustrated, "We can't touch him now without a reaction. Ah, Hell!" he suddenly exclaimed, moving to rearrange the oxygen mask gingerly and turning up the valve to one hundred percent, "But there's no choice, we have to get him stable and loaded now, or it won't matter if he's in pain."

In an instant, the blond was kneeling beside Colby once more, speaking to the other man, "No longer than we have to, but no mistakes." Sherman nodded, and Kissel turned to call someone through the open door, "Aaron! Get the backboard in here!"

Just seconds later another man jogged inside; carrying the plastic, orange stretcher, he quickly set it down next to Colby. Together all three grabbed hold of the downed agent, at his ankles, his belt loops and his shoulders. Colby wasn't even strong enough to moan protestations at their handling anymore. The only indication of the pain he felt was a hitch in his wheezing breaths and a weak flinch.

"1, 2, 3!" At the count, all three of them lifted then and, as gently as they could, brought him down on top of the backboard. Unfortunately, gentle wasn't enough and Colby wasted precious breath letting loose a strangled cry as pain flared across his shoulders, back and legs; skin too sensitized to recognize touch as anything but pain.

"Aaron, grab the drugs." Sherman indicated the glass bottles his partner had bagged. "And call ahead to the hospital. Tell them to have Physostigmine available by the time we get there, or they're not going to be able to help him either."

"We can't administer drugs without knowing what's in his system," Kissel said, as he grabbed the head of the stretcher and they moved out, "but he's dehydrated. A saline IV—"

The paramedics disappeared out the door, walking hastily across the deck to the rescue boat, taking with them a young agent who had died once today already.

Don and his team had been needed to help clear the scene, but Agent Rufus James had waved him away, saying his team would take care of it and would the three of them just get to the hospital already, the looks on their faces were scaring the other agents.

Don was grateful, both for the reprieve from duty and for the attempt at humor and he knew he should've said something to that effect, but all he could manage was a quick nod before wrangling room for himself and his team on the next boat out.

He called Charlie, knowing that his brother (who he acknowledged as an unofficial part of the team) was just anxious for news as they had been, and related the events on the boat. He handed his phone over to Megan after a few minutes to let her talk to Larry, then walked over and sat down next to David. Neither said anything for the rest of the trip.

They were greeted at the hospital by both Charlie and Larry, and entered it together.

Led into the waiting room by a very frazzled nurse (whose state was due largely in part to the barrage of questions that had greeted her when she met them), they got there just in time to watch Sherman and Kissel walking out of the bay doors (a blue-lit sign above announcing 'Medical Personnel Only').

Kissel, med bag in hand, turned to head down another corridor. He said, "I'll go stock up on supplies."

"All right. I'll meet you out front." Sherman replied, headed through the out-of-the-way waiting room in order to get out. He was greeted there with the assembly of three federal agents, one world-renown mathematics professor and one equally brilliant physicist.

"Is there any news on him?" Don asked, the one questions forstalling all the others that sat on the others' lips.

Sherman shook his head, "I don't know. We just delivered him in and gave his vitals. They cleared us out, needed room to work."

The serious in that statement was enough to give pause to most of them. All except one who had, since first setting eyes upon Colby, been unable to stop thinking about one thing. "Tell us what the drugs did, what they were meant to do." David asked quietly. "We know Potassium Chloride stops the heart, but what about the other two?"

Sherman scanned the eyes of the five, noting that they all seemed determined to know, and sighed, "All right. You're right. Potassium Chloride will cause the heart to stop. It's what's used in most executions by lethal injection, which I suppose is how you know of it. What was injected into Agent Granger's body was not the full dosage, but, in conjunction with the other two drugs, it was enough to send him into cardiac arrest.

"One of the bottles we bagged at the scene was labeled tubucurarine. It's a muscular paralytic that specifically targets the respiratory system. It works fairly slowly, gradually depressing the respiratory capabilities, each breath getting slower and shallower until eventually the victim can no longer pull in enough oxygen. It explains why he wasn't breathing when we got to the scene. Potassium Chloride doesn't do that.

"The last drug is Quinuclidynil Benzilate, and it's not common. It's an incapacitating agent used by several militaries, including our own. It's most commonly known as 'BZ' or, by the Iraqi 'Agent 15'. It's an anticholinergic, meaning it messes with the chemicals used in your pain receptors. It can sensitize you to the point that any touch, no matter how soft or small, can be excruciating. Added to that are hallucinations, akathisia, disorientation, ataxia, and loss of mental control leading to slurred speech and impaired judgment."

Sherman paused for a moment after the clinical recitation of what he remembered of the drug. He had contemplated holding back some information. He didn't know exactly what went on in that room, but he could guess, and telling these people in detail what their friend may have had to suffer was not kind. But, he had decided against holding back. They had wanted the truth, and he would give it to them.

Megan let out a long breath, then repeated softly the words that had been unfamiliar to her, "Akathisia? Ataxia?"

"Oh. Restlessness, and the loss of coordination in the muscles." He shook his head, "The last case I saw with BZ, I was in the Army. I didn't think I'd ever see it again, especially here."

"We—we're lucky you recognized it, probably saved Colby's life." Don said quietly, the leader in him acting unconsciously toward the man who had saved a part of his team. Don shook his head as well when he recognized that thought, since when had he gone back to calling Colby a member of the team? He ignored the voice in the back of his head asking back when had he ever _stopped_ thinking of Colby as a member of the team.

The radio hitched to Sherman's pants squawked to life, and he picked it up and confirmed the order. "I hope your friend is okay," he said before turning and heading out the doors.

And then there was nothing left to do but wait.

Larry sat beside Megan on the bench, who was leaning her head on his shoulder. Every once in a while, he would reach out and stroke her hand or lean over to whisper something in her ear. She'd smile because, knowing how uncomfortable some aspects of this relationship still was to Larry, she couldn't help but appreciate that he made such an effort when she really needed it. She made a mental note to thank him properly later, once all this was settled.

She wasn't sure how she felt about Colby at the moment, only that when that paramedic referred to him as her friend, she hadn't wanted to argue. She sighed and leaned harder against Larry.

Across the room, she saw Don seated on an identical bench. Charlie was seated nearby, but immediately next to him. It seemed he knew that sometimes his brother needed space. She had always prided herself on her ability to read people, it was skill she had had even before she turned it into her career (this instance with Colby notwithstanding because he was apparently a much better actor than his forced participation in the Children's Hospital's rendition of _A Christmas Carol _would have led her to believe).

She studied Don for a moment (knowing herself well enough to see it for the distraction that it was.) She knew he had been feeling responsible since the arrest, angry at himself for the perceived failure of not seeing Colby as who he really was. And, judging by the expression on his face, this newest revelation wasn't going to give him piece of mind, either. More likely than not, he was probably now berating himself for failing to protect a member of his team.

A look at Charlie and she knew that he was going to be a rock for his brother during this time. It might seem like a strange thought to those who didn't know the brothers well, because it was Don who was so often taking care of and looking after Charlie. But, despite the frenetic energy that surrounded the young professor, being around him was also very calming and, for a reason she wasn't quite sure she could pinpoint, especially so for people in their professions. Yes, he was as confused about this as the rest of them. But she could also easily see Charlie as the first to accept it as well. He would be good for his brother in the days to come.

She turned her head and caught sight of David, sitting by himself, equally removed from the others in space as well as in thought. It didn't take her education and experience to see that he was still angry. In fact, he seemed angrier now than he had been in the five weeks previous. And she understood that. For five weeks, they had all been angry (to different extents), and in the space of about four hours, they had found out that not only was that angry misplaced, it was utterly undeserved because the focus of that anger may well now be a hero.

In her head she understood that, but emotions were never quite so reasonable. David was still feeling angry and betrayed, except now he had no reason to _be_ angry and betrayed and no way to stop from feeling that way. She felt for him, but there was nothing she could do. Not really. This was something he had to get through on his own, and only with time. From the fear that flashed across his face from time to time, she had a fair assumption what his inevitable decision would be.

She sighed again, but managed to smile a little when Larry put an awkward arm around her shoulders. As it was, there was nothing any of them could do, but feel. This room was stasis, and time wouldn't start again until a doctor came through those doors with some news.

The three agents, as well as Charlie and Larry, all stood up when they saw the doctor headed their way. The tall, broad-shouldered physician stopped in front of them and asked, though more form habit than anything (with their constant questions to his nurses, he was quite sure of who they were here for), "Mr. Colby Granger?"

They nodded, Don adding, "Agent. We're his team from the Bureau. His family's in Idaho."

The doctor nodded, "It's all right. Agent Granger has you listed as emergency contacts. I'm Dr. MacMeekin. All right, I'll begin with the basics. Agent Granger was suffering from slight dehydration. He has several contusions, cuts and burns situated through his body, though they are mainly located on his arms and legs. His wrists, in particular, are badly bruised and abraded. But none of these are worrying. Though we did need to clean the worst of the cuts and burns to avoid infection, they are minor injuries and will heal nicely. What I'm worried about are the drugs.

"It's an unusual mix. Each separate drug has the capability of being fatal, mixed together and I can only imagine what your friend must've gone through." Dr. MacMeekin frowned for a moment, the doctor in his horrified that such obvious medical knowledge (because what he had just seen would require at least that much) could be used in such a way. He cleared his throat and continued, "We've given him Physostigmine to counteract that Quinuclidynil Benzilate, but I'm loathe to introduce any more chemicals into his body. So, barring any emergencies, we're going to keep him here for three days minimum to let the drugs run out of his system."

"Will it—uh, doing it like that, will it hurt?" Charlie asked quietly.

"I won't lie. He will be in some discomfort, but nothing that should rate painkillers or sedatives." He smiled reassuringly at the rest of them, and meant it, because he loved giving good news, "The drugs should be gone in about 48 hours, and after that, he should be fine. There was no damage to his heart or lungs. He'll make a full physical recovery."

They all stood, watching the young agent sleep through the glass, oxygen mask fixed firmly on his face. Charlie's smile was large and bright, all joy and relief, acceptance so easy it bore no need of mention. Larry's smile was somewhat more reserved, but no less full as he stood beside his friend and held Megan's hand. There were tears in Megan's eyes, her smile watery, but genuine. In fact, the only sign of any lingering conflict would be the tightness with which she gripped Larry's hand. Don's face was expressionless, but he heaved a sigh and rested a hand on Charlie's shoulder, finally smiling when his younger brother turned to grin at him. David stood stiffly, with his arms crossed, his eyes focused intently on the slow, but regular rise and fall of Colby's chest.

END

I know I took a lot of liberties with the drugs and the medecines, and I apologize to all those to whom it sincerely matters. I have no knowledge of that kind of thing. All I know is what I researched before writing this. I apologize for any mistakes.


End file.
